


'I saw the surpirse, the look in your eyes'

by Forbiddenmichael



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, all michael wants to do is sleep, and all calum wants to do is sleep with michael ayee, calum i drunk, internalised feelings, this is just very fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbiddenmichael/pseuds/Forbiddenmichael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He heard me, Michael thought. Calum’s eyes were far too open and awake to be because he had just woken up. For how long he had been awake he didn’t know, but for not long Michael hoped. The warmth of his skin tried to warm the trembling of his small hands, which were shaking in a way similar to the effects of shivering. But despite Calum’s warmth, Michael’s hand still shook. </p>
<p>“Are we still pretending?” Calum whispered, nose bumping the others’ for a fraction of a second. </p>
<p>or Calum is drunk, and in such a state he doesn't realise he just asked the boy he was in love with, to effectively 'be in love with him' just for the night</p>
            </blockquote>





	'I saw the surpirse, the look in your eyes'

**Author's Note:**

> title from wait for me by kings of leon bcos the mechanical bull album is another level of perfection 
> 
> yes I know I'm being a shit by writing one shots when I should be writing for I know looks can kill, but yeah I'm being a shit I have no other reasons
> 
> also this in unbetad atm bcos my beta went to see the summer set and I was too impatient to wait :( so all mistakes are mine etc etc 
> 
> anyway heres some fluffy malum for yall

When Michael woke up, the first thing he noticed was how he couldn’t feel anything. Not the warm fuzziness of the slightly deflated cushion under his head, nor the chill of one leg over the duvet and the other warm underneath it- one leg in and one leg out keeping him just warm enough- or the fact that his now brown coloured fringe had fallen over his eyes in the night, making a sort of curtain, which, if he had bothered to opened his eyes, his eyelashes would have caught across. 

But all these sensations and indicators of heat were lost with the deliriousness of a recently risen mind. A fog, thick and dense and one that tugged at his consciousness to just rest and close his eyes for ‘just five more minutes’, was still lurking at the back of his mind; letting lose tendrils of itself stroke across his mind in temptation before a vacuum sucked it away. The edges of Michael’s mind didn’t yet fully awaken and the bed was so warm and welcoming and he was so tired. Five more minutes, he thought, succumbing to the promise of a few more minutes of the unconscious state of not feeling anything at all. It descended, enveloping the brown haired boy into itself and his eyelashes fluttered across his dusty cheeks as his eyes closed fully. 

-

The fog was sucked away from Michael’s head. Ripped away from the boy, leaving him cold and alone and feeling everything, the creek of his sore muscles and the emptiness that came for twenty seconds before anyone cared to ask why they had been woken. The last glimpses of sleep slipped away from him as fast as water down a drain and retreated till the mere thoughts of it were unimaginable. So suddenly it had been taken from tightly clasped hands that Michael didn’t care to search out the equally abrupt noise that brought about the loss of serenity. 

Michael all but grumbled, feeling dyed hair fall into his mouth, which he spat out without much thought as to the sounds that sounded rather like choking. The sound reverberated out of his throat, up from the pit of his stomach and out of his mouth. It was as good indication as any to whoever had just made such an absurd sound, at such an absurd time, that they had just woken someone who had no thought of being gentle. 

Incoherent grumbling turned to mildly questioning sounds at the crashing around in the previously sleeping boy’s room continued. Loud, throaty grunts that rose up higher at the end in an attempt to ask what the hell someone was doing in his room and this time of night, came from the bundle of duvet Michael was wrapped in. The grunts were not answered, or even acknowledge so Michael reluctantly twisted till he was facing upwards on the bed. He ignored the slight tug of the duvet where he had clasped it between his legs as he rolled onto his back. 

“What?” he practically groaned, tongue felling tacky and heavy in his mouth and it slid along the roof of it like sandpaper. It didn’t matter that his mouth was able to respond to the bleary shenanigans going on in his room; his eyes weren’t- refusing to open until there was a high giggle from the side of the room responsible for the crashes. Now, whilst ignoring how when his eyes opened even the small glow of red light from the bedside alarm clock caused him to squint at its brightness, he stared down the edge of his nose to the area. 

Even in the half-light he could make out the whites of normally chocolaty brown eyes, and the flash of a perfect set of teeth. A delirious and intoxicated Calum was fumbling around the room removing each item of clothing with what seem to just be drunken excitement. Why he was drunk was a question not worth asking, because frankly, why did Calum ever get drunk when it wasn’t, like he said every time Michael asked, ‘to just have fun’. 

The real question was why he had made his way to the older boys’ hotel room when he and the rest of their band mates had their own rooms across the hall. Or it could have been how he managed to get in Michael’s room without a key card. Or the one that was staring him straight in the face, about why on earth Calum was now standing in just a plain black pair of boxers with a huge grin on his face and slightly blown out eyes, at the foot of Michael’s bed. But it was mainly, what the hell he was doing here in the first place.

“Hi, Mikey” he giggled, his voice high and erratic and slurring at the end. Standing just at the end of the bed, the slight moisture of sweat on his body, from god knows what, caught the glare of the bedside clock. 

“Calum, what the f-“Michael began, himself sounding less groggy as he woke up even more. 

“Shush” the other boy cried out, throwing his arms in the air at the boy in the bed before he could continue to speak, “No swearing! Ash might hear you!” with the last sentence he looked around, almost as if he was waiting for the long hair boy to appear from thin air and curse him out for even thinking of swearing. 

“Cal, seriously what do you want?” The sleep had started to blur from Michael’s vision by this point, but his words still came out in a slightly lower tone than normal. Calum stretched, lifting his arms above his head and facing his palms to the ceiling. The skin across his whole torso and stomach pulled taught and he exhaled drastically before slouching again. 

“’m tired” he whined, like some sort of stroppy pre-teen. 

“Okay?” he was really starting to get on Michael’s nerves now. Regardless of whether Calum was Michael’s best friend or not, it was unfair. And probably more so because Calum had been the boy’s best friend for so long and knew how difficult it was for Michael to sleep in the first place. He couldn’t just stroll into his room in the middle of the night, strip to just his underwear and then moan about how tired he was, when he was never even going to remember the conversation in the morning. He was far too drunk to even be responsible for his actions right now, let alone remember any of what he was doing. 

This did give Michael the slightest vote of confidence because the fact that if Calum was in his room, pestering him, he wasn’t with another girl he’d picked up at whatever club he’d been to. It was something that would bring Michael happiness later on, but not right now when his eyes were threatening to close the longer Calum just looked at him, so right then, he couldn’t care less.

Calum’s eyes flicked from Michael’s frowning face to the edge of the mattress. He stared at the corner of the duvet since it was curled tight in his best friend’s fist, which was pressed against Michael’s chest from when he curled over from his back onto his side. Clenched up into himself, like a C or a comma, there was a space just big enough for another body; if that body was mirroring his position and belonged to a certain boy with specifically black inked arms and brown tousled hair. 

Calum looked to his feet, shuffling his foot against some sock or item of clothing that littered the hotel room floor. Twiddling his hands behind his back he didn’t say anything. Just gnawed slightly on his lip, a habit Michael was sure he had picked up from Luke, and then looked up at him again. His inked hands twisted awkwardly behind him, and it would have been cute and endearing if it wasn’t the always over confident Calum, or if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing to cause the tug at Michael’s heart. 

Michael made a conscious effort of ignoring the way Calum’s bottom lip was turning pinker and plumper the longer he sucked at it, and also the way his hair flopped slightly into his face as he looked at the floor. And also ignored the fact he was drunk and didn’t actually want to cuddle him in particular, the younger boy was just annoyed he didn’t pick anyone up whereas Luke and Ashton probably did. Huffing, he relented. Throwing the cover off himself, ignoring the goose bumps that formed when his warm yet pale skin came into contact with the cold air, and Calum took that as the only confirmation he needed. 

Practically hopping over to the bed, he didn’t have far to come. Four large bounces and he was by the side of the bed. He looked down at the still disgruntled looking Michael, fondness creeping into the small curve of his smile. And then he slipped his feet under the covers and pulled it back over the two of them. It wasn’t a small bed. Just big enough for two people -even if they were both over six foot-, but with Calum lying so warm and soft and sleepy next to him, the bed couldn’t have been big enough to put what felt like a ‘safe’ distance between the two of them. 

With whatever space was left in the bed when his and Calum’s two bodies were in it, Michael distanced himself. Stopping himself from coming into contact with Calum’s hot-to-touch body, something that would make his mind go fuzzy with a fog that was not like the mist of sleep.

And admittedly this was one of Michael’s weaker moments. It made it sound like even the mere ghost of a touch from his best friend, from his band mate, would have him weak at the knees- or on his knees but whatever. Which was a lie. Michael cuddled with Calum all the time. He doesn’t think their many years of friendship would have lasted so long if so many of the nights Calum had stayed over hadn’t ended in falling asleep in each other’s arms. And Michael hugged with the other boys as well, well maybe Ashton not so much, but Luke had always been a sucker for attention and affection. 

But Michael thrived in those moments with Calum, even if he didn’t let on. When he could feel Calum’s skin against his own, to feel the shape of his body and see the contrast in skin tones with his own eyes. Where he was close enough to see the tiniest flicks of gold in Calum’s eyes and the way his eyelashes were actually the darkest of browns and not actually black. The thing was, to fully appreciate them, Michael had to sike himself up for it first, almost give himself a pep talk to mentally prepare himself. Just to get it straight with himself, that well just because he had a raging crush on Calum, it did not mean Calum was anything other than very very straight. 

And now, with the lowered inhibitions of the boy lying next to him, coupled with the lack of coherent thought from himself due to sleep deprivation, he couldn’t trust himself. The opportunity to take advantage of Calum’s state was too much, too great and all too enticing. 

Calum’s brown hair curled around his head and around the mass of the pillow, a pillow that would no doubtable smell of him in the morning, and it wasn’t like Michael would be using that pillow for the rest of your stay in the hotel to soak up the smell of him lingering on it. He wasn’t going to fall asleep imagining the smell on it was left there because Calum had left him to get him breakfast after a late night together. 

He mumbled something that resembled a ‘thank you’ when he had first lain down, and Michael just thought about the fact he only had to ask and Michael would give him anything. There was still what felt like a cavern of space between them, the white bed sheet representing some sort of glacial divide between him and the boy. It wasn’t like this hadn’t happened before; one of them stumbling into the room of the other, asking to just sleep in the same bed for the night because company seamed to keep the demons and insecurities at bay whilst they slept. 

It was just that they weren’t (normally) half naked whilst in each other’s beds, or drunk, or Calum in Michael’s bed whilst half naked and drunk, or the subject of a giant crush or all of the above. Mostly what had Michael’s heart rate raising was just the fact it was Calum. But before erratic thoughts a sweet goodnight kisses or days of stolen ‘I love you’s’ with the boy next to him could enter his head like they normally do before the snatches of sleep catch him, Calum was shuffling back into Michael’s chest. 

From when Michael had been curled up, he had done the same with space between. Now, without so much of a word the younger boy moved back until the two curls of their bodies were together. His back against Michael’s front and even the curve of his thigh pressed against the front of pale legs. Air felt thick and heavy when Michael breathed it in, and when he breathed it out it fluttered across Calum’s neck and jaw line; it felt sickly in his mouth. 

If he had been watching, he would have seen the goose bumps form across the tanned skin, but he was too engrossed in the way Calum’s skin burned hot and cold against his own and how contentedly they both sighed. Subconsciously one of Michael’s arms had snaked around Calum’s side and was pressed in a tight fist against the other boy’s chest, whilst the other remained curled up against his back. Even with a hand pressed up against the smooth expanse of his back, Michael couldn’t bring himself to open up his pale palm when the temptation to rub not so soothing circles on his back would be too much to overcome. So Calum remained curled into the alcove of Michael’s body, a tanned hand clutching a pale one to his chest. He was the little spoon, and Michael the big spoon. 

“Mikey?” he whispered, still drunk as his whisper came out as more of a stage whisper, meaning he was basically talking normally. 

“Hmm?” he asked, telling him he was still awake, if only just. The hum echoed down Calum’s ear, and Michel’s lips nearly caught the shell of it. The tanned boy tried not to shiver and succeeded, and the boy behind him was none the wiser. Sleep started to consume them both as the pause was long and dragging. And just as Michael thought the boy in his arms had succumbed to the call of unconsciousness, he whispered, properly this time. 

“Can you pretend you already know I’m in love with you?” there was no quiver at the end of his voice like Michael knew there would have been if he had asked if he was actually intoxicated. Just as quickly as he had asked, Michael was wide awake. Wait, did he just say he was in love with him, or was he just saying he wanted someone to be in love with him? His head was spinning, and he tried not to bolt upright in bed and demand what Calum was asking of him. 

Then Calum spoke again, before he even had chance to process, let alone react to what he had earlier said. “Can you pretend you’re in love with me?” there was no sarcasm or any signs of teasing in his voice. Only what Michael could identify as hope. 

“Okay” he whispered, this time it was really a whisper. More to himself than anyone else, as a way of reminding himself that yes, this was okay and he wasn’t going to ruin everything. The small okay barley reached Calum, but he smiled anyway, a small turn up of the corners of his mouth, no teeth or dimples but a small secretive smile just for himself. 

He pushed away the feeling of butterflies in his stomach and said louder, “Okay”. 

Calum smiled again in response, feeling elated but void of the growing sense of something foreboding in the pit of his stomach that Michael had, but was trying to ignore. He may be drunk, and his judgement impaired completely, but he still knew that he was in love with the boy within whose arms he rested, and it just didn’t occur to him that maybe this wasn’t the best way of telling him so. 

Regardless, Michael pressed a chaste kiss to where his shoulder joined the muscle leading to his neck. Leaving his lips there for longer, lingering and savouring the way the other boy’s skin gave under his lips. He placed another kiss to the shell of Calum’s ear and tried to ignore the voice in his head that was telling him that he was taking advantage of his best friend just because he was drunk. 

He had asked me himself, Michael reasoned with himself. I’m only pretending. Pretending. Yes that was it. 

Calum’s body was warm in his arms and he was so soft and everything Michael had thought he would be, the younger boys height allowing him his chin to rest in the curvature of his neck instead of on his crown of messy hair. This was better he thought for Michael could see the edge of his lips from here, and when he eyes were open and closed. 

Angling his head slightly forward he kissed Calum’s check, letting the warmth of his skin send flutters of electricity across his lips. Three stolen kisses were all he allowed himself before settling back down onto the pillow. 

Calum hummed in approval and muttered. “You’re good at pretending, Mike”. Then sleep claimed him for itself. Lying wide awake, Michael thought about how pliant Calum was in his arms, how the boy had kind of said he was in love with him, and how all of this was pretending. Only pretending. 

That’s all Calum wanted, he told himself, for him to pretend. The room was still dark, and the sun was still to raise, so, whilst still pretending, Michael sucked in a breath and whispered, “I love you” right down Calum’s ear. It was okay, he was only pretending. 

* * * 

When Calum woke the next morning he remembered everything. He always prided himself with his ability to hold his drink and most often he did. Sure, the alcohol would cause him to splutter out useless rubbish and do some things he wasn’t proud of, but it was almost as if he was watching through a screen. He knew he was doing them, and that he was only doing it because he was drunk but he couldn’t stop himself. He always remembered. That was just it, it was like his normal self was trapped in his delirious body, screaming and telling him to stop. 

But for just once it was like his normal state was teaming up with the drunken one. When he told Michael that he loved him last night, sure he was horrified at his drunken mind, but in some ways he was ecstatic. He hid behind the façade of being drunk. Letting Michael believe his entire drunken slur was exactly that, just a drunken drabble of consciousness. And when the older boy had kissed him, his impaired body relaxed into it, into the nest of Michael’s arms and maybe Calum let himself pretended that Michael wasn’t pretending. He pretended that Michael did in fact love him. So when the shiver and chill of three words, uttered as softly as the sound of sand falling in on itself, entered his mind, he imploded. His drunken and delirious mind crashed and stirred within him, until he really did feel drunk on something other than alcohol. He smiled to himself then, forgetting Michael was just pretending.

\- 

When Michael woke the next morning, the heat radiating off the body next to him was scolding. Calum’s tanned skin gave of a certain essence of serenity and calm that he didn’t believe was possible, so he just gave into it. The scolding heat of his body was just something so Calum. The way it had always been, and no matter how it was annoying to grow uncomfortable when they cuddled in hot countries, he was just glad that he had left the air conditioning on in the hotel room last night as he succumbed to the other boys’ warmth. 

Calum was still asleep; the little puffs of air coming from his noise blew away a piece of hair hanging in front of his face. They were still in the same positions as last night, so Michael could only partially see half of the Calum’s face. The jawline, cheek bone, squint of the side of his eye and curve of the corner of his smile, were all that was visible to him. Calum’s eyes were still closed and his lips set into a relaxed line. 

In a movement of pure indulgence, he allowed himself the luxury of speaking three words to the sleeping boy. Michael had always wanted to wake up and those words to be the first he said, so he spoke them into Calum’s sleep-warmed skin. ‘I love you’ he muttered, and it filled him with as many butterflies that would lead someone to think that someone had said the words to him instead. The thrill of saying them out loud was hammering away at his floundering heart. This was the effect skin on skin contact with Calum had on him. 

-

Calum’s eyes fluttered open, finally opening them after savouring the feeling of being awake in Michael’s arms. Michael didn’t know this of course, and he was still asleep when Calum had snuggled his back further into the older boy and entangled their legs. When Michael had woken, Calum felt the shift of his breathing on the back of his neck and how he stirred around him until he realised he wasn’t alone. Calum felt him lean forwards as almost to kiss him, but stopped. Michael had sighed, the new found air across Calum’s face making it difficult for him not to open his eyes as it itched his nose, before Michael then nestled forward into his neck. A small smile crept across the younger boy’s face and he tried with all his might to bite it back.   
Michael didn’t see, and Calum was glad they could both pretend that this domesticated life was real. ‘I love you’ Michael had muttered into his ear and Calum almost cried out, - a mixture of fear at the fact that maybe Michael was still pretending, and with anticipation of him not actually pretending. His heart pounded and his head swam and it had nothing to do with his acute hangover. 

Michael had said he loved him and his whole existence was being soaked up like a small bowl of water and a large sponge, to be weighted on this moment. Waves of elation crashed down on him like the crest of a wave and left him washed up like a piece of drift wood. He wasn’t sure whether the hammering feeling was his own heart beating a hundred times faster in his chest of if it was the manic beating of Michael’s heart against his back. 

So whilst all of these thoughts were going through Calum’s head, Michael savoured what little time he had left with the boy swaddled in his arms, unaware of said boys’ inner turmoil. But unannounced he turned around within them, twisted in the bed, facing his best friend with inches between them. His legs were still twined with Michael’s and Michael’s pale hands were now clasped together by Calum’s larger ones. The glacial space between their faces was filled with Michael’s erratic breathing and flittering, scared eyes. 

He heard me, Michael thought. Calum’s eyes were far too open and awake to be because he had just woken up. For how long he had been awake he didn’t know, but for not long Michael hoped. The warmth of his skin tried to warm the trembling of his small hands, which were shaking in a way similar to the effects of shivering. But despite Calum’s warmth, Michael’s hand still shook. 

“Are we still pretending?” Calum whispered, nose bumping the others’ for a fraction of a second. 

Michael couldn’t speak, words caught in his throat and he felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. What if Calum only was pretending the whole time? What if he was laughing at him and that was why that small smile was spreading across his face? What if this is all some sort of joke? And how did he even remember last night? Thoughts and images raced across the older boys’ mind, too fast and jolty for him to process half of them. A running storyboard of everything he had with Calum and how it was all about to go up in smoke. 

He had no intention of opening his mouth through fear of spewing out something like ‘I’m in love with you’ coming out. Calum inched closer, and if he spoke his lips would have caught on Michael’s. 

“Because I’m not” he breathed onto Michael’s lips, before they were pressed upon them. Soft lips fell down on Michael’s and moved across them. To say that Michael needed time to react would be cliché, but ironically accurate as out of all of the things he had thought Calum would do, pressing repeated kisses to his lips whilst he fought to remain in control of his erratic thoughts, was not one of them. 

So with that first kiss, Calum stopped pretending. He stopped pretending that he wasn’t in love with his best friend. He dropped the façade that he wasn’t in love with one of his best friends and he just let his mind run free. He let his mind take over and give into every thought that had been kept under lock and key at the back of his mind. He stopped pretending that all the girls he had brought back from clubs dulled the ache in his chest for Michael, and the fact that he even thought of maybe bringing back another guy might help him. He pretended that his heart wasn’t soaring when Michael finally kissed him back. And he pretended that this wasn’t what he had been craving for longer than he cared to admit. 

But really he just stopped pretending that this wasn’t what he had been dreaming about for years as Michael’s hand slipped into his hair and his upper lip fell between his own.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed it :))


End file.
